


Costlemark Crawlers

by NiwaHanake



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, High School Noctis, Matthew Mercer does Cor's voice and I love Critrole so...., Nerds viciously fighting boredom, brotherhood era, critical role references, no beta we die like men, pre-game
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2019-09-18 11:18:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16994016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NiwaHanake/pseuds/NiwaHanake
Summary: During a blackout in insomnia, there are no video games to be played. Thankfully the Marshall has a hobby that doesn't require electricity.Cor decides it's time to introduce the kids to Costlemark Crawlers.(P.S. There will be some critrole references.)





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I'm a new DM. I've hosted a total of three (3) sessions as of the start of this fic.   
> I've played in a total of 3 (three) sessions as of the start of this fic. 
> 
> Please bear with me, gentle constructive criticism may be appreciated but keep in mind I write at like 2 AM with several cocktails in my system, thank you and have a nice read!

A blackout. 

 

In the center of Insomnia, one of the supposedly most high-tech cities on the continent. 

 

In the middle of summer holiday thursday night.

 

In the one time of year Noct and his buddy could stay inside the airconditioned apartment playing video games all day without anyone bothering them too much.

 

Instead of just the two of them, Ignis, Cor, Gladiolus and some other crownsguard were stationed in and around the block to ‘ensure his safety’ as if this was some kind of fucking assasination attempt.

 

Usually backup generators were a thing, but power was still limited… only a couple main hall lights worked

 

The apartment had never looked so cosy though, with the candles about... 

 

Ignis had made a refreshing dinner carpaccio and salad, and as uniform behaviour for Noctis, he tried to bribe other people into eating his greens for him, after having exactly one (1) slice of cucumber and deciding that greens weren’t for him. So despite the lack of electricity, not an unusual night.

  
  


Having Cor in the apartment was weird though. He was a figure he knew, and a figure he knew well enough from just being crownsguard, But he’d never hung out with him more than the business relation of a crownsguard and a prince. 

 

“So… I know about… Iggy and Gladiolus, are you one of Noct’s caretakers too?” Prompto attempted to break the ice between strangers.

 

“Not exactly. I am Marshal of the crownsguard. I oversee everyone and make sure everyone’s safe. It  _ was _ my plan to stay at the citadel, but I came here at request of the king.”

 

“O-oh. Alright then.” Prompto kind of… shut down.

 

“We’re fine. It’s not like we’re gonna do anything now the power’s out.” Noct sighed and slumped even further in his seat. His sofa was fairly wide, but he’d already slumped in a few times, so his butt was on the verge of falling off by now. His phone was being fiddled with plenty, but he wanted to preserve juice, even without networking services running….

 

… And the king’s knight servers down. 

 

“I’m not discouraging you to do as you usually would, by any means.” Cor said calmly, this was where Gladio stepped in. 

 

“It’s just that our young prince prefers games of the digital kind and he can’t access any of them with the power out.” And that cued Ignis to add in as well. 

 

“It appears our prince’s fantasy is a bit limited.” And various noises of protest emerged from Noctis.

 

Now, Cor took a seat in front of the sofa, on the floor. “That sounds… like a challenge.” He said and put his sword aside, and produced from his jacket pocket a small bag. “I’ll admit this power outage wasn’t something I had on my watch either, and tonight  _ was _ the group’s usual  _ Costlemark Crawlers _ night.” He said. 

 

“This is your old man’s dice bag.” He said and tossed it to the prince, who had not seen it coming but caught it anyway.

 

_ Just with his face. _

 

Prompto snorted but suppressed it very quickly to avoid being barked at by the prince. “What is Costlemark Crawlers-- exactly?”

 

Cor smiled, he’d piqued an interest. “It’s a roleplaying game, you take the role of a hunter, and take down monstrous beasts and sometimes perhaps even gods.”

 

“So a regular thursday for you fifteen odd years ago, huh?” Gladio snorted as he took a seat, if Cor was gonna be doing this, he’d bite. 

 

“Close, but not quite. In here, magic is a lot more accessible, and there’s more kinds of people than just humans.” He said and looked over to what the teens were doing.

 

What they were doing was observing the dice and being fascinated with the dice.

 

For the record, Regis’ dice were really nice. The platinum rim along the edges, the translucent resin core with blue tint and silver inlay… Prompto looked at the d4 in the palm of his hand and glanced at Cor. “How do you… roll these?” 

 

“Like any other die, whatever number comes out on top”

 

“But some of these don’t have a definite top”

 

“The topmost face is the one that counts.”

 

“When does it count?”

 

“When I ask you to roll.”

 

“Like….?”

 

“Like for seeing how perceptive you are, or telling if people are being liars. Or… “ And Cor fell silent for a second with a hard facial expression to read. 

 

“Or?”   
  
“Or for seducing the major antagonist you’ve built up for about a year.” 

 

Chuckles, and a couple full-blown laughs break out, even Ignis’ attention is piqued.

“Are you suggesting we can play this game?” the valet asked with keen interest. 

 

“Well… you  _ did _ say the prince has no imagination, so if may be a little difficult.”

 

Noctis interrupted. “And you said dad plays this?”

 

Cor nodded. “He’s the best and worst bard I’ve ever witnessed. He and Clarus are a good team.” To which Gladio leaned in. 

 

“Pop plays?”

 

“Of course, Monica and Dustin as well. Your father is far more tactile than he lets on.” he said and glanced at ignis. “Ignis do we have pens and paper?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been wanting to start this fic for ages, oh my god. 
> 
> Next chapter will be our chocobros setting up characters and Cor imporvising a lot since he doesn't have the rules on hand, but also probably like 20 years of DND experience. 
> 
> Again I'm probably giving him a lot more Matt Mercer than he should have. 
> 
> For those curious I might make a bonus chapter where Cor's intended group plays. (I wish Wheskham and Cid had good contact with Reggie and the gang, imagine that party)  
> Reggie is a Bard, I'm just letting him go full Sam Riegel. Clarus I feel would be some form of multiclassing mix with Paladin or fighter, just an absolute mastermind keeping Cor on his toes. 
> 
> I have no idea about Dustin or Monica, because they gave Kenny Crow more characterization than both of those characters combined, but I'll make it work with the hints I have.


	2. "Session 0"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang establish their characters. 
> 
> (Mind you this is an extremely dumbed down DND version because one: the bros are absolute noobs. Two: No PHB in sight.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all the comments on the first chapter within 24h holy fuck. I never get comments and this makes me super happy. 
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy this ride as much as I'm enjoying it so far. mind you I'm still rusty as all heck since I've poured all my creative energy into exams and making a doll for my graduation project so I haven't written or drawn anything for ages. (and with that i mean like 3 weeks with the exception of my webcomic)

After a general explanation of how the game worked, roughly. They decided to play… A fairly open game; mostly through the lack of dice, though they did steal some more d6’s from the board games Noct had somewhere stuffed in a closet. 

 

“Now I won’t tell you what to do, so it’s probably best to have your character be like yourself.” Cor advised. 

 

Gladio was the first to choose his class. “I’ll go Barbarian, it sounds like I can handle that.” And went ahead to start rolling numbers as per Cor’s instruction. 

  
Prompto put up his hand enthusiastically “I wanna be a Ranger! That means I get a dog or something right?” He chimed, and Cor nodded in partial agreement. 

 

“Think something more along the vein of Coeurls or Bears, but yes you would be able to get an animal companion eventually.” He corrected. 

 

“I don’t start with one?” 

 

“You know what? Sure. It’s not like we’re planning to make a year long campaign anyway.” He said, loosening up with every passing minute a little more. 

 

Next up was Ignis. “I think I will try my hand at a Cleric.” He said, having obviously thought about this.

 

That left Noctis, still thinking. “What are you considering, Noct?” Ignis asked, without answer. It seemed Noct wanted to take this choice alone. 

 

The room quieted down and everyone else was quietly considering where to put their stat points, For the sake of brevity they all assumed human races and Cor didn’t bother trying to cover skill proficiencies for this, so they’d just have their saving throws and straight ability skill checks to work with for now. 

 

“I’ll be a Rogue.” Noctis cut the silence. 

 

“Very well, Start rolling and assigning, Noct your saving throws are Dex and Intelligence.” Cor said as he jotted it down on his notepad. 

 

Cor improvised Some health and abilities, a roughly sketched equivalent to what he would chalk up to be a fifth level character. 

 

“Wait--so how do hit dice work again?” Prompto asked. 

 

“When you take a short rest you can use a hit die to recover health.”  Cor answered calmly

 

“Just one or more?” 

 

“You could use all 5 of them for all I care, it depends on how much you need.” 

 

“Caaan I roll a couple and choose to roll more if they come out shitty?” 

 

“Sure, but you only get five per ingame day.” 

 

“Gotcha!” 

 

Gladiolus’ Barbarian, Going by Gladio. (Honestly Cor had hoped for a little more fantasy, but he wasn’t going to question it.) The physical description was literally just himself, but with long hair and with his family tattoo on his arms and back, to which he received the comment that he’d have to be topless all the time for that to show. And therefore, Gladiolus’ character was to be topless for the duration of the game. 

 

He stood strong at 60 Maximum Hit Points and an Armor class of 15. Not particularly smart, wise or charismatic, but a decent powerhouse and not too slow on his feet. Thanks to that constitution stat he could take a decent punch as well. 

 

Gladio wielded a Greataxe and Javelin, had to ability to rage and frenzy, and was the proud owner of a well counted 42 gold.

 

“And… Raging is that thing that makes me stronger, right?” Gladio confirmed. 

 

“Yes, you deal more damage and take less. You roll for an attack with your strength, and if that hits, you get to add 2 damage to your roll for that.” Cor explained once more. 

 

“Alright… And the frenzy was an extra attack, right?” 

 

“Yes, if you choose to Frenzy you will gain the ability to make an extra attack, at the cost of your energy.” 

 

“Do those work like hit dice?” 

 

“No? Not exactly? You get exhaustion as you pull stunts like frenzying and they serve as penalties. You rest and the penalty goes away, or you don’t and it gets worse, until you die. It’s incremental.” Cor said with a slight huff. 

 

Prompto’s Ranger, was more satisfactory to Cor’s imagination. “Is it okay if we play… not ourselves?”  Prompto asked when he was asked to summarize his character. 

 

“Of course” Cor answered with a hint of a smile, and with that Prompto smiled a little too. 

 

Prompto straightened up and introduced himself as Adame, A ranger/Daemon hunter woman with a chocobo companion named Sir Kwehnsington. Her favoured enemy type were Daemons, and preferred the mountains as terrain. He described her as looking quite athletic, with soft, short, blonde hair loosely hanging around her face. 

 

“Can we have guns?” Was a quick question right before Prompto continued his introduction of Adame.

“I’ll let you say it’s a gun, sure, but the hand-crossbow stats you wrote down still apply.” Cor said and Prompto made a little victory gesture. 

 

So he described her as a no nonsense gunner, with 37 hit points and nearly forgot to note down what his AC was. Cor gave Adame 125 gold to start with. 

 

“Why does he get more gold than Gladio?” Noct asked. 

 

“Forgive me, I’m improvising, and I’m using your birthdays.” Cor huffed with a smile

 

“But Prompto isn’t born in January, he’s--”

 

“I know, but 1025 gold would be a little much, no?” 

 

“How do you know my birthday anyway?” Prompto asked. 

 

“Background checks.” Gladio chimed before anyone else could. 

 

“Huh.”

 

Next up was Ignis’s Cleric. Whom he called by his middle name: Stupeo. His Domain is light, as he is a worshipper of Bahamut, with a variety of spells at his disposal, both healing and damaging. The weapon in his favour was a spear. 

 

Appearance wise he decked himself out in scale mail, and wore a hood that sounded like he was describing something akin to the Kingsglaive uniform, obscuring his entire face, and the look on Ignis’ face wasn’t going to let the others know what lurked beneath the mask, not for this game anyway. 

 

Stupeo was given 72 gold to begin with, and had 30 hit points, A total AC of 14, due to his mediocre dexterity, but otherwise Ignis found he had rolled a fairly high average, his highest statistic being a 19 which he placed in wisdom. 

 

Lastly there was our rogue, Noct Gar. Whom had initially rolled 4 out of 6 stats below 10, and was therefore allowed to reroll until he had an at least half decent array of ability scores, and wouldn’t die with the first arrow shot at his face. 

 

Noct Gar looked very pale, and wore his hair just above the shoulder, had a fairly well trimmed beard. Black as night, together with his clothes, which consisted of studded and spiked leathers. 

Noct Gar’s forte was knives, daggers to be precise. 

 

“If I throw a dagger, does that return to me or do I have to get it?” Noct asked. 

 

“You have to go get it, unless you find a magic item that makes it retun.” 

 

“Seriously? That sucks-- can I stuff a thousand daggers in my coat?” 

 

“Not a thousand… But I’ll give you six.” 

 

So, armed with six daggers, Noct Gar was agile and stealthy. With an Armor Class of 17 and only 23 Hit points.

 

“And I can pick locks and unarm traps right?” 

 

“Indeed you can, but you’ll have to notice the traps before you take care of them.”

 

“That’s fair”

 

Noct Gar was given 83 gold to start with, and with that they had a fairly decent impromptu character sheet going on. 

 

“So with this, I want you to start thinking about your goals and keep them secret from the others if you want to, tell us or pass me a note in a minute. I’m gonna grab some drinks before we get this started.” Cor said and stood up, the others mostly in thought, apart from Ignis.

 

“Let me join you.” He offered, and some murmurr filled the room in this breaktime, mostly Prompto geeking out about how he’d never expect to play this game, much less for Noct’s father to play this game on a weekly(ish) basis, with other officials. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't expect to get daily updates omfg I was just inspired. 
> 
> It'll be a miracle if I manage to make it to chapter 5. 
> 
> So About these kids. I made Prompto play a girl because he does have a bit of an escapist nature, As for the name, I wanted something that kinda matched up with his last name, but not copy it. And I couldn't choose "gold" in Latin because that's Cindy's name, and straight up throwing Aranea in here is a bit much, so Adame it is. Derived from Adamantem/Adamas. 
> 
> Also I know that in the normal 5e verse has the life/war domain, but in FFXV he's fairly linked to light, so that's what I made him be. Some things are going to be a bit twisted to fit Lucis, like Daemons instead of Fiends.


	3. The start of a game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short, but sweet. Some small pregame motives are set, and they make the first roll!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a tiny bit of inspo and we'll pick up where I left off here next time. When I know how I want to start playing this.

“If you don’t mind me asking, how did you get into playing?” Ignis said as he grabbed some glasses for everyone. “Well… It was a thing way back when, during the war. Regis ran the game to wind down… I think they played before we set out too, but that was before I served Regis.” Cor’s voice sounded fondly melancholic. “I was surprised to find out Regis was inspired to play through Aulea.” He spoke, thinking back on times when Regis would lay down intricate puzzles and Aulea busted them right before his eyes. Good times. 

“Anyway, do you have an idea of how you want to play your mystery cleric? It’s pretty bold to hide his face like that.” Cor asked Ignis.  
“Perhaps I’d like to be something a little less than human.”  
“Alright….”  
“Not per se in an evil way, perhaps something a little less predictable?”  
“Unpredictable huh? Don’t take this the wrong way, but how about something like the scourge?”  
“How would it work?”  
“Maybe like… every so often you’ll have to roll to see if you can suppress it, and if you can’t you lose control of yourself for some time… if it happens often enough you just turn into a Daemon.”  
“What if I do?”  
“Then I suppose your goal is to try and murder the party.”  
“Fair enough. Can I stop it?”  
“Of course.”  
“How?”  
“Now that is for you to find out and for me to improvise before you all realise I’m pulling this out of my ass.”

The two men returned with everyone’s drinks, and where Cor had sat, there were now some folded papers. When he sat down and looked at them Prompto bounced in his seat a little as he explained that they’d all written down their character’s goals.

First, he read Adame’s-- or well, Prompto’s note. It was a bubbly and almost childish kind of handwriting Cor had not seen in a while. Prompto described Adame’s goal to permanently reduce enough daemons and evil to create a safe place to ranch chocobos (Her family had also tragically been murdered by daemons)

Noct Gar was kind of a robin hood, which was cool, if not expected of the crown prince.

Gladio was a warrior who had a thing for Adame, and protected her as they traveled.

With a decent array of snacks on plates and everyone’s drinks topped off, Cor cleared his throat for attention. The game was about to begin. 

“Let us begin our story… in a land not unlike Lucis. A land cultivated by the gods themselves and plagued by evils far beyond mortal comprehension. To the far north lies the capital city of Vasselheim. A city said to have survived the wars of the gods. To the south lies the vast Solarian sea. Where legends speak of ocean devils and the lost civilization of Solheim…” With each spoken word, Cor studied their faces, saw them getting pulled in, slowly but surely. 

“The east and west borders of the land are lined with mountains, beyond which are Terra Incognita to most. But our story begins not on the seas, nor in the city. Our story begins in the Argentine marshlands, smack in the middle of it all.” and prompto seemed to perk up at the improvised bastardization of his last name being used as a place, but he was up for it. 

“Adame and Gladio, you’ve been travelling south for the past couple days. Adame, you and Sir Kwehnsington are on the trail of a possibly hurt chocobo.”  
“Oh no!” Prompto gasped. “Do we keep our eyes on him?!”  
“It’s been a while since you last saw the critter, but go ahead and roll the d20 to see if you spot him. Add your wisdom bonus.”   
Prompto took a die and made the fateful first roll. “I rolled an 8 so that’s 7.”   
“You rolled a D12, try again.” Cor huffed with a smile and handed him the d20.  
“Oops. Alright, 15 total.” Prompto announced, looking up at Cor with both anxiety and expectancy. 

Cor needed a moment to think of the words, and then began. “Looking around you, you do keep track of where the critter went, and focus along the path of it’s tracks, you don’t see it directly, even in the open wetland. What you do spot however, is some reflective humanoid lump sitting on a rock… an armored figure.” He said and looked at Ignis, who took the cue. 

This game was off to a great start.


End file.
